What should humility look like? Is it admitting you’re a helpless/hopeless sinner, no better than the next guy? Is it conceding that you’re not as good as so-and-so? Is it telling people that you are limited in your abilities and understanding? I don’t think so. Rather than thinking “meanly” of yourself, I have come to believe that real humility is simply not thinking of yourself at all. Most would probably consider the opposite of humility to be pride, or thinking highly (and much) of oneself.

Of course everyone values humility in other people. It’s such a charming quality! But oh how hard it is to practice it ourselves. (We have our rights and dignity to maintain, after all.) And I suspect many who seem to find the ability to display humility probably end up falling into the trap of pridefully calling attention to it. Dr. Warren Wiersbe wrote in Be Joyful (p. 58), “humility is that grace that, when you know you have it, you have lost it.”

Interestingly, and seemingly contradictory, the most humble man of all time also happened to be the greatest man of all time. His attitude is described by the apostle Paul in chapter 2 of his letter to the Philippians:

“5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.”
Philippians 2:5-7 (NIV)

This verse tells us about Someone of divine pedigree and unparalleled privilege (his true nature), who set all of his greatness aside in order to voluntarily take on a very different nature, that of a servant, a person of little to no privilege. He had to set aside his rights in order to accomplish this. (But do I really have to set aside my “rights”?) He made himself nothing. Jesus didn’t think badly about himself, he simply didn’t think of himself at all. (“Nothing“ is not bad, it’s simply… nothing!)

Paul the apostle had a similar attitude:

“I am not in the least inferior to the ‘super-apostles,’
even though I am nothing.”
2 Corinthians 12:11b (NIV)

The word “humiliation” also comes from the root: humil –. We would probably say that Jesus’ entire earthly experience was one great 33-year long humiliation, capped by an excruciatingly humiliating criminal’s death. Yet Jesus likely never felt humiliated, because the entire focus of his mind was somewhere other than himself. How about that?!

So for me to live according to Jesus’ example means finding the ability to make myself nothing (not bad, just nothing), and to give up my “rights”. I don’t expect that ability to develop in me fully overnight, but rather gradually over time as my relationship with the Lord grows. As I exercise humility, others might see humiliation. But if it’s real humility that I’ve found, I will likely not feel humiliation, only the joy of seeing the Father’s will accomplished in and by me!

~ Mike

[Originally published: 12 August 2007 at 11:29 pm]